“A Place in the Sun”

That’s what Italian dictator Benito Mussolini had promised the Italian people, and that’s part of the rationale he used to order the invasion of Abyssinia on October 3, 1935.  So, where is Abyssinia?  The country is probably more familiar to you by its modern name:  Ethiopia.  It’s located on that hook on the northeast side of Africa (the Horn of Africa), where the Red Sea and the Gulf of Aden meet.  Ethiopia almost butts up against the coast, but not quite, because it’s blocked in the north by Eritrea, which became an Italian possession earlier in 1935.  It’s also land-locked in the south by Somalia, and Italy already owned the section that bordered Abyssinia (called Italian Somaliland).

If you look at those links and kind of build the map in your head, you can see why the Italian government was interested in Abyssinia.  It wasn’t just to create a vacation paradise in the desert, but also to join their other possessions in a continuous landmass.  Plus, conventional wisdom suggested that if one country was going to invade another, the invading country should try to go after countries militarily weaker than its own.  Abyssinia fit that bill nicely, too.

The Abyssinian army numbered nearly half a million men, but most of them had little or no military experience or training.  The vast majority fought with spears, bows and arrows, and a few swords.  Those that had rifles used models that were ridiculously old and decrepit.  The Abyssinian army did have a few artillery pieces and a handful of WWI-era tanks, while the Air Force fielded about 20 aircraft.

The Italian military which crossed into Abyssinia at 5:30am in the first act of an undeclared war had 800,000 men (none with spears and all with guns), more than 2,000 artillery pieces, 600 tanks, and nearly 400 aircraft.

This conflict had all the makings of a serious Abyssinian spanking.

Recommended Reading: The Italian Invasion of Abyssinia 1935-36, Vol. 309

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